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The last paediatrician in rebel-held Aleppo has been killed in a Syrian regime air strike on a Red Cross-supported hospital which claimed the lives of more than 50 others.

Dr Muhammad Wassim Maaz, five colleagues and at least four children being treated at the hospital in the district of Sukkari were killed when it was hit by four direct strikes just before midnight yesterday.

The al-Quds hospital, which is supported by Doctors without Borders (MSF) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), is one of few remaining to residents in the opposition-controlled areas around eastern Aleppo.

MSF said the 34-bed, multi-storey hospital was the main referral centre for paediatric care and had an ER, an intensive care unit and an operating theatre, which had all been destroyed.

People inspect the damage at al-Quds hospital after it was hit by air strikes.Credit:
REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

Eight doctors and 28 nurses worked full time in the hospital, said MSF, which has supported the hospital since 2012.

Another of the victims was a nurse named only as Safaa, who was killed along with her husband and two children, and the hospital’s dentist Dr Mohamed Ahmad.

Volunteer rescue team The White Helmets are continuing to dig through the debris in an attempt to locate and recover survivors.

“It hit in the middle of the night,” one rescuer told the Telegraph. “The children were sleeping in the beds - we think some of them are still missing under the rubble.”

Women walk past damage near the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)-backed al-Quds hospital after it was hit by air strikes. Credit:
REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

A video posted online showed a number of lifeless bodies, including those of children, being pulled out from a building and loaded into ambulances amid screaming and wailing.

Relief International charity said: “Dr Wassim was the last pediatrician in Aleppo and a respected member of our extended team. We grieve for him and the two colleagues we lost.”

The Syrian government denied responsibility, however the air strike was one of a number of attacks reported by emergency workers over the past week, suggesting a broader pattern of the targeting of hospitals.

Days earlier five members of the UK-funded White Helmets were killed when war planes bombed the city of al-Atarib, west of Aleppo.

People inspect the damage at a site hit by air strikes, in the rebel-held area of Aleppo's Bustan al-Qasr, Syria.Credit:
REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

Mohammed Alloush, the political leader of the main opposition group Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam), said in response to the hospital bombing: "Whoever carries out these massacres needs a war tribunal and a court of justice to be tried for his crimes. He does not need a negotiating table,” referring to President Bashar al-Assad.

An uptick in fighting around Aleppo, the country’s former commercial hub where some 250,000 still live, has killed at least 186 people from both sides since Friday and threatened to finish off the fragile ceasefire once and for all.

Rebels have controlled eastern districts of Aleppo since 2012, confining the government to the west.

The Syrian government claims large parts of the east are held by jihadist rebels, including al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, and are therefore not covered by the ceasefire. Hospitals under their control are therefore considered legitimate targets.

People inspect the damage at a site hit by air strikes, in the rebel-held area of Aleppo's Bustan al-Qasr, Syria.Credit:
REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

The regime, backed by Russian warplanes, is preparing to launch a much larger offensive in the coming days to retake the whole of Aleppo, which is Syria’s largest city and the most important for the government to reclaim.

The ICRC warned that the northern Syrian city is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster as a result of renewed fighting there.

They said in a statement on Thursday that the fighting is putting millions at grave risk.

Stocks of contingency food and medical aid are expected to run out soon and warned that an escalation in fighting means that they cannot be replenished.

The air strikes came just as Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy for Syria begged co-sponsors US and Russia to help revive peace talks and a ceasefire which he said “hangs by a thread”.

Mr De Mistura is struggling to keep the peace process alive after the main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) left formal talks last week.

The Geneva talks are deadlocked over the key question of President Assad’s future. The main tenet of the opposition’s demands is for him to step down, while the government say his role is not up for negotiation.

De Mistura is talking about May 14-15 for starting the next round. “But it is very, very theoretical,” the Western diplomat said. “It is not at all a given that the two parties will return to Geneva.”